Kathmandu, Dec 20 (IANS) As talks with the government failed, Nepal’s former Maoist guerrillas Sunday enforced a three-day general strike nationwide, the biggest protest since they laid down arms in 2006, shutting down transport, industries, markets and educational institutions and blocking road links with India and China.
Clashes broke out in the capital as hundreds of former rebels blocked the road leading to the only international airport on the eve of Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal’s arrival from the UN climate summit in Copenhagen. Security forces fired dozens of teargas shells and led a baton-charge to disperse the mob.

Police said 14 marchers had been arrested in Pokhara town and Saptari district in the Terai plains for attacking vehicles.

Former Maoist minister for women, children and social welfare Pampa Bhushal led protest marches in Kathmandu valley at 5 a.m. as the party cadre, waving red flags with the hammer and sickle, blocked roads and highways by burning tyres and shouted slogans against President Ram Baran Yadav, the target of the protests.

Maoist chief and former prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda blamed the two largest ruling parties, the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist and Nepali Congress, for the disruption, accusing them of trying to wreck the peace accord signed in 2006 that ended the decade-old Maoist armed revolt.

Prachanda also said if the three-day shutdown failed to meet his party’s demand, a fourth phase of protests would be announced against “foreign intervention” in Nepal, which could include an indefinite general strike.

It was clear the former revolutionary meant Nepal’s southern neighbour India, whom the Maoists are blaming for the fall of their eight-month government, and the US.

The government, on the other hand, is upbeat about Indian support, especially after the prime minister’s meeting with Indian premier Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the Copenhagen summit.

The local media Sunday quoted Nepal as saying India supported his government and was confident it would be able to promulgate a new constitution by May 2010, the centrepiece of the peace accord.

Nepal’s army, recently under fire after the UN expelled one of its officials for tarnished rights record from the UN Peacekeeping Forces in Chad, was also buoyant after its chief Gen Chhatraman Singh Gurung returned from his nine-day visit to India.

Besides being conferred the honorary title of general of the Indian Army by Indian President Pratibha Patil, the army morale was boosted by the Indian Army chief, Gen Deepak Kapoor, reportedly saying that the Maoist guerrilla army should not be inducted en masse in the Nepal Army as it would lead to the politicisation of the army.

The peace accord had pledged to induct the Maoist combatants in the national army. But the integration was blocked by the then army chief, Gen Rookmangud Katawal, whom the Maoists tried to sack but failed due to intervention by the Nepali president.

Condemning the strike, the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry said they were forced to observe the closure since the government had failed to provide any assurance of safety.

However, it warned it would implement a no work-no pay measure for the three days.

The Maoists, who are now the largest party in parliament after winning last year’s election, are asking the government to rescind the decision taken by the president in May to reinstate Gen Katawal.

“The midnight reinstatement was a coup that heralds military rule in Nepal in future,” Maoist deputy chief and coordinator of the protests, Baburam Bhattarai, said.

The Maoists, who fought a 10-year war to overthrow monarchy and turn Nepal into a federal republic, are accusing the ruling parties of trying to scuttle the agreement and abet the comeback of deposed king Gyanendra.

They are also prophesying that the government would fail to implement a new constitution, to be written with people’s direct participation, by May 2010 and would instead seek to declare emergency and President’s rule backed by the army.

The government, on the other hand, says it is committed to unveiling the new constitution next year and is counter-accusing the former rebels of violating the peace pact by enforcing general strikes and other protests.